


I Am No Coat! You Cannot Doff Me!

by Atqueinstupracaballum



Category: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: General Frustration, I can not stress that enough, Jealousy, Jekyll is d r a m a t i c, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Possessiveness, Pre-Canon, Prostitution, Sexual Frustration, This got a bit darker then I had original intended, Violence, Wine, did I mention jealousy?, there's a lot of jealousy, whine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24921823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atqueinstupracaballum/pseuds/Atqueinstupracaballum
Summary: Dr. Jekyll notices a new fellow taking up more of his dearest friend's time these days.Dr. Jekyll is not put at ease by this realization.
Relationships: Henry Jekyll/Gabriel John Utterson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 38





	I Am No Coat! You Cannot Doff Me!

**Author's Note:**

> I feel that we as a society have failed to appreciate Mr. Guest's potential as a character.

_'Your invitation is received warmly but rejected regretfully, Harry. As much as I would enjoy to dine with you, I have made prior arrangements that I feel it would not be right of me to break off. I know you shall understand perfectly. Perhaps, though, over the next week we may...'_ Jekyll allowed the letter to fall away onto his desk. Disappointment, as well as annoyance, blossomed in his chest and mixed into something dangerously close to betrayal. Had it been any other day the rejection would have been somewhat normal, taken with some amount of regret, but still with grace.

Henry Jekyll was not, as of late, inclined to feel particularly graceful. In his _humble_ opinion, the days were suspiciously numerous where he would receive letters of this nature from dear Gabriel, discarding him for some other dinner or luncheon or afternoon stroll. There was someone new, Jekyll could smell it in the air, could smell it on his dearest friend. He did not like it one bit. 

Who was this bloke? This _fellow?_ Unless it was not a bloke at all. God forbid it was some woman coming to steal his friend away at last! In light of this rather frightful thought, he attempted to imagine his dear friend with a woman, any woman, but failed to. The two things seemed impossible, incompatible. This gave him some bizarre, far fetched sense of hope. Hope which he promptly ruined for himself. 

_'So it is a man, let us assume that it is. Utterson knows many men, but never, never before has he shook me off for another one of them before. Why, he has doffed me like a coat. I am no coat, I am Dr. Henry Jekyll! What an insult! One that was so sudden...So he has found another he deems more favorable, is that it? A distraction, but of what nature? What on this earth could have encapsulated his attention more than I, who strives always for it? What is to be done!'_

After two drinks and a long bought of pacing, it seemed that there was only one thing to be done. Investigation. 

He was no detective, but he had learned long ago how to monitor the flow of British gossip, and more importantly how to listen for all of it at once, without making himself known as an ease dropper.

From then on any mention of his dear dusty lawyer or his firm within a crowd was given full, inconspicuous attention, no matter the time, or place, or whether or not he was engaged in his own conversation. While it did not automatically pay off, and while Jekyll grew tenser by the day, he was eventually graced with a tidbit. 

  
"You know, my cousin went to him when his business was robbed, he was all praises for Utterson and that head clerk of his- I can not remember his name. But anyhow, he won the case..."

A new head clerk? Jekyll would have very much liked to turn around and wring the name out of this new informant. But, seeing that there were witnesses, he did not and continued his cordial discussion between lady something or another and duke of damned if he could remember. Yet, in his chest his heart swelled with a boost of confidence. At least now he had footing to casually approach the subject with his friend. In his experience, interrogation worked best when the person being interrogated is oblivious to what's being done. 

  
The trouble was getting Utterson in his company to begin with. To write a letter and beg his company was futile, _obviously_ , and so he decided the best method was to lightly, with every good intention in his heart of hearts, commit an act that _some_ might label stalkerish -but what did they know!-. Tomorrow was Sunday, a perfect day for such an enterprise, in Jekyll's _humble_ opinion.

Church was given, at best, distracted attention. Jekyll was impatient. It shadowed his smile, in the gentle, restless bounce of his knee, a slight edge to his otherwise perfect persona of piety. With unusual determination he exited the church once the service had found completion, ending conversations with people as quickly as they started -at least, he attempted to-. 

_"_ Apologies sir, I would love to speak with you, but I am needed elsewhere I am afraid." 

"Madame, my dear madame, profuse apologies but I must be off. Everything is well. No, no I am not engaged yet...no...Yes I have been acquainted with your daughter..." 

"Yes, my lord, of course, but I must- well- well I must- my dear sir I have obligations cur- yes- mhm..." 

At last, though, he escaped, and at once began on his trek. 

Utterson was a man of habit -to an extreme extent at times, Jekyll thought- and so he and his cousin followed the same basic route around London on each of their walks. He had run into them a few times rather naturally in key spots, and had once watched from his lab window as they shuffled down the back alley behind his home. Alas, how was he to know which of these key locations were most beneficial to establish himself in? 

_'They each have their merits, of course, but staying put in only would not be all that effective, for what if they had already passed by that spot. The chance would be lost completely. No good at all! Damn...Well, there is only one thing for it then...'_

And so, he began on his way. If one single spot could not be chosen, he would simply prowl all of them until his prey was found. 

It took some time though, and Jekyll was not a particularly patient man. But at last, mercifully, he saw the two kinsmen in the distance.

At least, he spotted Utterson, who by now he could probably recognize at 100 yards if need be, and he deemed it safe to assume the dark splotch next to him was Enfield. With haste, he proceeded towards the two with all the air of a man who had full intentions of tearing the lid off of his friends private life for his own peace of mind but was instead stretching his legs and enjoying the fine day around him.

"Utterson!" he called cheerfully, hailing him once he was in hailing distance. Utterson at once brightened at the sight of his friend, as did Enfield, in their own respective ways.

"Jekyll, how do you do?" Gabriel sped up to meet him, obviously somewhat relieved. 

"Quite good, and you, sirs?" As he spoke, Jekyll was quick to place a friendly hand upon Gabriels back as they returned to Enfield. 

"Just as well," responded Utterson's cousin, a shade of curiosity put an odd twinkle in his eyes as he considered Jekyll. Henry did not like that look. Nonetheless, he powered on. 

"You would not mind if I were to join you gentleman, would you?" Jekyll did not expect resistance. After all, who would object the company of such a _fine_ gentleman as he?

"Of course not," Utterson assured, Enfield merely nodded. As a threesome, they began once more to trot forward. 

"You know Utterson, I am a little cross with you," Jekyll remembered to say it playfully, for man takes truth far better in jest.

"I was aware that you might take it upon yourself to feel that way. There is no need to guilt me," responded Utterson. By his expression, Jekyll could tell Enfield was soaking this conversation in like a gossip fancied sponge.

"I had no intention of that, you must know, and I am a little offended that you thought me capable of that. I would never wish to drive guilt upon you! But admit I am endlessly glad that we meet now in such a manner as this. I have missed you, dear friend." 

"I have made my apologies to you already. But it could not have been so lonely, I dare say." Utterson, as he spoke, gave to Jekyll a somewhat incredulous look, as if Jekyll were being dramatic. 

"Indeed, I heard you made a rather impressive run of English society all this week. Not a day has passed where I have not heard your name uttered in connection to some ball, banquet, or social" poked in Enfield.

"Naturally, everyone wished for me to be everywhere, that is true. But my point persists. It is one thing to stand in a crowd of hundreds and talk to each one of those persons, but a completely separate, dearer thing to sit in a drawing room with one person whom you actually set aside personal feeling for." 

"I must insist that I am not your only friend," reminded Utterson, that same manner of disbelief only heightening, even through his undemonstrative ways. Jekyll always had liked the fact that he was the only one that could make Gabriel _demonstrate_. 

"Well, yes, that may be so, but Gabriel you are my truest." His voice, without his explicate dictation, had dipped down to more tender low, whilst his smile was awfully, affectionately sly. He wanted nothing more, at that moment, then to land a kiss to Utterson's beloved hand. _There_ , he thought as he flicked a look too Enfield, _spread that around you little eavesdropper._

They began chattering of nothing after that, or so it felt to Jekyll, until at last Enfield made some excuse and broke away from them. Jekyll was more then relieved to see him off, and soon after warmly took his friend by the arm, silently saying that _no_ , their conversation was not yet over.

"So, tell me, how have you been really? What of your firm?"

"My firm?" Utterson almost sounded surprised, for they rarely concerned one another with their respective jobs. "All is well with it. Business is as usual. I will tell you that there is a new gentleman working as my head clerk, he has become a great help to me."

"Yes, I believe I heard something about that, what sort of fellow is he?"

Jekyll had not suitably prepared himself for Utterson's response.

He was in a bad mood when he returned home. His servants were shocked to see their usually gentle master slamming doors and glaring about like a badly tempered child. Poole, however, had seen this before and knew to stay out of his way and appease him with a cup of tea and chocolate. The food helped cut the edge off his dissatisfaction, but still there was to be felt a certain pit of foulness bubbling within his chest, one that stayed with him long into the night.

As he lay in bed, making his most violent attempts to go to sleep, Utterson's words kept coming back to him. Apparently Mr. Guest was his name, and apparently Utterson very much liked him. Before that day, Jekyll could not recall if he had ever heard his friend give praises to another soul. Certainly, no praises had ever been given to _him_. But oh, Guest received such a charming description. He was young, simplistic, a great hand in the firm, with a good disposition, a true _pleasure_ to be with.

_"I am afraid I tell him more then I ought, perhaps, but he is just one of those types, you know, who it is most natural to be open with. I put a great deal of trust in him, he has yet to make me regret it..."_

_"You will meet him eventually I am sure, under business circumstances no doubt, but still, I think you shall like him..."_

A thousand and two images tortured him as he lay, filling him with rage, with need. He had not felt an ache this sharp since university and had since then maintained blissfully that he had outgrown the fiery, squalid possessive desire that characterized those turbulent days. He was not an emotionally charged student anymore, a passion wracked boy, no, now he was a man...A man that wished for nothing more than to take his friend, his love, and put him somewhere no one else would ever find him and who felt indignation when faced with the fact that he could not get away with such a thing.

This was unsustainable, this was hell. He could stand it no more. 

So, he rose, dressed, and snuck like an intruder of his home to the lab, then from the lab out onto that shadowy back street.

All was dark, his footfalls were lighter than usual. This was an operation for the utmost stealth. His clothes were darker and plainer then usual, the collar of his large coat, as well as his top hat, masked and shadowed his face, concealed the audacities he was about to commit from the decent world and left them only for the indecent to gawk at if they so chose. 

By now the way to Soho was as clear to him as the way to his own home. In a sense, both were equally his dens, both were equally where he longed to reside forevermore. In the folds of his coat there lay a pocket watch, ticking down the hour he had given himself for this outing. One hour was all he needed. One drink, one boy, then he would slip back into silk sheets atop a feathery mattress, back into respectability. 

Smoke and various other heavy, filthy smells stuck to the walls of his lungs as he moved amongst drinkers, prostitutes, and various other unreputable sorts. Oily gin that burned his mouth and throat was gulped down greedily. This was no time for refined taste. As he downed his alcoholic filth, his eyes roamed with predatorial gleam around the establishment. He could not quite tell if the inferno chipping away at his sanity, eating through the layers of his skin, had calmed or not. He decided as his eyes met with a young man that he did not care. 

  
He could not have been any older than nineteen, the prostitute that he now had shoved up against the shadowy sideboards of the bar. One hand of the whore still clutched the money Jekyll had roughly shoved into his palm. It was all a crooked blur of undoing pants, pushing down cloth, before tight heat enveloped his spit slicked cock to the hilt. From then on he was blind to nearly everything besides the drive of his hips and the overwhelming, uncontrollable appetite that seized him.

In his life, he had had many lovers, all of who tended to blur together when he was fucking into someone unimportant. Fitting, that all the perpetrators of a sin should run together like wet ink when the sin was revisited. He cared not to face this new victim as the defilement was committed, so his mind turned only to itself, to supply another image to overlay onto this whore to make the act somehow more palatable, yet decidedly more disgusting. After he was done he would add that boy to his memories collection of others like him, like glass cases full of dolls, or other memorabilia. Mere knick-knacks, nothing more.

Tonight, however, behind closed eyelids the ink of past lovers faded away and traded itself for something far closer to the issue that had driven him out in the first place. A bestial growl escaped from grit teeth. His thrusts grew more passionate, more desperate.

"Gabriel," he hissed, pressing his teeth against the prostitute boy's neck. He could feel the pulse thundering under his lips, could taste the salt on his skin. For a moment, just a moment, like an eclipse, it was divine. All he had to do was keep his eyes closed, smother the boys cries with a hand, and Heaven was his for a few measly coins. Pins pushed at the back of his mind, hot needles sliding in, refusing to let go, the onset of hysteria. He ignored it, so close to his peak. "Forget him, forget all of them. What do they have that I can not provide?" Within his mind his friend answered with a whimpered 'nothing'. A wicked smile came upon Jekyll's lips, his teeth sinking into the first patch of flesh he could catch. Distantly he could hear screams. He ignored it. "That is right, nothing. You need nothing but me." A tremor twisted his still grinning lips. Pain collected against the back of his throat. "When will you see it! When will you see..."

He reached his release with a sob. 

  
Once he was done he let the boy fall onto the alleyway floor. At first, the leech tried to scamper away, for his job was done, but the pain in Jekyll's head had not receded. Without all of the sexual tension that had coiled within him, he was left raw, an open bloody pulsating wound. There was a roaring in his ears as he landed a kick to the prostitute's side. A cry was heard. A sick pleasure coursed through Jekyll as he once more took up his cane, in the moment it was the sweetest sound he had heard to date, it was vengeance. 

_Feel this. Feel it in your bones. Feel what it is to be me._ He beat the boy until no more curses or shrieks met his ears, until, in the shadows, the limp body seemed no more than a mangle smear of blood. _No one shall miss us, shall they?_

Done with his business, he whipped his cane and boots clean with a handkerchief which was thereafter discarded. As he stepped from the alley, calm in mind body and soul, he hazarded a glance at his pocket watch. A smile came to his lips. 

_Not quite an hour, but well spent nonetheless..._

While he sat to breakfast, rummaging through the daily paper and various letters of discourse and invitation, he came upon an invitation to dinner on Wednesday. 

It was from Gabriel. 

He turned it over in his fingers two times before discarding it entirely. He would not go, that was only natural. Jekyll was quite sure that _he_ would be there and that Jekyll had no wish to be in _his_ presence, nor really did he wish to be in Gabriels at the moment.

They were all dead to him. He did not _need_ them. Jekyll had his work, his reputation, and most importantly, his _project._

_  
_ With unfathomable zeal, he threw himself into that project so dear to him. In stacks on books and notebooks, he lost himself for hours, ink smudged his fingers, his forehead, beakers were scattered about, chemicals that probably should not have been mixed together were set to rest overnight. All of this, whilst in his heart was swaddled with a sort of Romantic, poetic peace of mind. 

That is to say, he was loathful, melodramatic, his entire soul bewailed his plightful existence, but it was all background noise to the intellectual, productive side of him. By now, his own bewailing was white noise to him. 

Hours passed in this state of obliviousness until Poole came forth with his afternoon tea. This project was well and good, his life's work and all, but magnum opes' could damn well wait for tea. With his warm china cup, he sat by the window, peering out onto the hustling market progressing below. Without industry to act as a numbing agent, the melancholy which had danced with the back of his mind began to seep to the forefront. That was no good at all. Woefully he pressed his forehead against the glass pane. 

' _Look at all those people down there! Poorer folk, yes, hard workers, but healthy, full of life, they seem content. Contentment is a mystifying thing. What would it be to wake up and want nothing? Or, rather, want little things, but overall seek no change to circumstance. What would it feel like to have no urges one way or the other...'_ He let out a very long, very heavy sigh, turning his head away and taking another sip of his tea. ' _Would it be Paradise or Damnation, living in such a way?_ ' 

  
_'Perhaps I should go to that dinner...'_ he played with the idea for but a moment before recoiling with a grimace. 

"No," he muttered allowed, finishing off his tea and rising from the window sill. "It is better to stay where I shall be _appreciated_." He turned upon his empty lab, which to him, at that moment, looked alive. He did not need Utterson, or that bastard Guest, or anybody. His chemicals could serve as friends enough for him. 

  
That opinion lasted just as long as he needed it to. Wednesday passed with ease until night fell and Jekyll plagued himself with images of what he was missing. 

' _By now they have sat to dine, yes,_ ' he thought to himself, moodly tearing into his own roasted chicken. ' _What are they talking of? Are they talking? Are they happy? Damn them if they are!'_

_'What does this Guest fellow look like anyhow? With a name like that he could not be handsome...not at all. What does he talk of? Utterson said he was interesting, but now, what does Utterson know of interesting things...'_ having established that he was in every way superior to Mr. Guest, only two questions remained to him:

_'What does Gabriel see in him?'_

_'Am I missed tonight, have they even noticed I am not there?'_

  
By sunrise of the next morning, these two thoughts alone had sunken him into a mild stupor. Tired, lonely, frightened, utterly abandoned by the world, he clung upon a wine bottle like a child and its pacifier when no one could bear witness to it.

Consequentially, when Poole entered the drawing-room where Jekyll was wasting away in self-pity and announced that Mr. Utterson was requesting to see him, Jekyll was not in his most sober state. Still, he was good at playing that sort of thing off by now and was just drunk enough to consent with all the jolliness of a man seeing his friend for the first time in years. 

_I have not been forgotten!_

Alas, though he could hide his inner turmoil and tipsiness from most people, Utterson had always been the exception. He came in, beautiful as always to Jekyll's wine influenced eye, and at once took up a troubled air. 

"I feared this was the case." The lawyer said gravely once they had been left to themselves. 

"What," asked Jekyll, not quite getting his meaning. 

"Your letter in response to my dinner invitation was worrying." A knee weakening pleasure soured through him. Utterson was worried for him! Still, he could show nothing, and so furrowed a brow.

"Well, I was busy, nothing could be done for it. Sit down now, relax, would you like a glass of wine?" He made a far to grand gesture whilst speaking. 

"Henry...That was one of the most pitifully worded letters I have received to date, from you or any other, and I am a _lawyer_." Instead of sitting as Jekyll had asked, he strode forward and seized the wine bottle currently resting, nearly empty, on the side table. "I shall be having none of this right now either, nor shall you, it is not yet twelve and you have already indulged yourself with it far too heavily." Despite Jekyll's loud protests he corked the bottle and put it far out of his friend's grubby alcoholic fingers. "Now, what is the matter with you? Have I offended you in some way?" 

"Gabriel..." he stared moodily at the bottle across the room before locking eyes with his friend. A cruel streak overtook him, thrusting him into an at once cold, unsentimental state. "Sometimes a man must choose industry over social outings, and that is that." 

"That is a good sentiment to have, Henry, but that is also not the issue at hand. Not the real one, at least." 

"Was my presence even missed at that dinner, tell me that!" Henry exploded, fists curling as his eyes flashed dangerously. 

Utterson was not impressed. 

"Calm yourself, that is not how gentlemen speak to one another. Let us be adults about his." he paused, eyeing Jekyll to see if he took the reprimand to heart. Seeing that he did not, and in fact had grown more childishly offended, he continued with a sigh. "Of course your presence was missed, whatever could have given you an opposite impression." His voice was just a bit softer around the edges.

"You are good about being frank with me, Gabriel, so tell me. Are you tired of me? Have you grown tired of my stupidity? Am I to much trouble for you now? Tell me, please..." He batted his eyes at his friend, a pout still tugging his lips.

Gabriel was, for a moment, speechless in the face of the hopeless man-child before him.

"I...What is this...You truly are drunk then..." his disappointment laced statement fell away as something clicked within his mind. He gave Henry a look of tender reproach, almost as though he were embarrassed on his behalf. "Henry...Mr. Guest is a dear friend, but you..." in the pause of his words Henry's heart seemed to stop. Gabriel came to him and put a hand upon the curve between his neck and shoulder. The touch was like lightening down Henry's spine. A flush came over him as he stared into his best friend's eyes. In his tipsiness, he dared to hope that this was it, the moment he had been waiting for-. "You are my brother." 

  
Out of all the reactions to his most earnest assurances Utterson had anticipated for, a wailing sob was not one of them. 


End file.
